llegada

Eyes wide open and crusty at 7:30 am. Jet lag. I lay there for a moment, remembering where I was, a little smirk creeping onto the lips, thinking how different (different wonderful) this feels cause I know I'm going back this time, thinking thank god I'm not here for good. Pad across the living room, cold saltillo floors under fleshy feet, open the door to feel a nippy 45-degree morning. Everything is where it was, except they've thrown out the black pleather couch, now the den of the last surviving cat (apparently my mom ran over the other one - you can laugh, I did). That huge oak tree, the one that reminds me of the tree of life, at the opposite end, that deep blue soot-free sky speckled with wisps of clouds, and not a trace of airplane tracks in sight.

A mocking return. The strong nasalised accents, the oversized asses, the use of golfcarts in airports, flip-flops everywhere. The land where everyone looks the same, at least, the women in Texas. I doubled over when this girl of about 15 - you know, the slender blonde chick that is going to be someone's sidekick, but never the alpha, in delta delta delta - rolling her eyes at her dad, saying no, serious-ly, really no serious-ly, no serious-LY with that wonderful valley accent that falls at the end of words and makes them sound like whiny questions. I could not believe I had just spent the day before drinking pink champagne and smoking shisha. I can't believe I can see the entire sky! I can't believe that the first night I'm back, I hear that rumbling thunder that shakes the house, a sound that we miss in good ol' Ingerland .